PRECEDENT - AS A SOURCE OF LAW
‘Precedent’ is a legal principle or rule that has been established by a court decision. It is a source of law that is binding on lower courts in the same jurisdiction. When a court decides a case, it is bound to follow the precedent set by higher courts in the same jurisdiction. Nature and authority of precedent: Precedent is not a rigid doctrine. A court can depart from precedent if it finds that the precedent is wrong or outdated. However, a court will not depart from precedent lightly. In its nature, “A precedent is purely constitutive and in no degree abrogative” which means a precedent can not abrogate any law but it can create a rule of law. The authority of precedent derives from its trueness. It is an established rule of law, produced in the form of a judgment by a court of law, that ought to be taken as true. Basically, the doctrine of precedent is based on the principle of stare decisis, which means “to stand by the decisions”. The doctrine of stare decisis ...